There is a patch available for SIMS to copy the information stored in
the 'Connections Assent' field in to the 'Youth Support Services
Agreement' field. The 'Connections Assent' field will be removed with
the Autumn 2012 upgrade. If you would like the patch please log a call.

This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and
privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient,
please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this
e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this
information by a person other than the intended recipient is
unauthorized and may be illegal.

December 03

The revised inspection arrangements follow a comprehensive consultation
‘A Good Education For All’ which received more than five thousand responses from
teachers, headteachers, parents, carers and governors. Respondees agreed that
children deserve the best education possible and as a result Ofsted has
introduced inspection arrangements that challenge the education system to do
better.

December 03

I reproduce in full here Geoff Perry's posting from the SIMS web site for your information:

Patch 17387 has been withdrawn and will be replaced tomorrow by patch 17395

If any school would like this patch - please request it by mailing helpdesk@edit.org.uk

Patch 17387(17:15 20th August)

This
utility was written to reduce the amount of manual editing users need
to do to compensate for the lack of QAN numbers in the board's supplied
data and not to correct any fault in Exams Organiser, which behaves
correctly with the supplied board’s data.

There have been an
increasing number of calls today, reporting difficulties in installing
in some schools but not others, this has been traced to longer than
expected descriptions. As a result this utility has been temporary
withdrawn and replaced tomorrow morning (21st August) with Patch 17395

Exam Patch Clarification (20th August 11.50)

Patch 17387 can be run over and over again

Patch 17320 (double discounting) can be run on Spring and versions up to Summer 4. Patch 17320 was included Summer 4

Patch 17392 replaces 17287 which replaced 17055.

Patch 17287 was included in Summer 4. So 17392 needs to be run after applying Summer 4

NEW Patches (16:20 17th August)

I am pleased to announce that two exams patches 17392 and 17387 are now available for download from SOLUS

Patch 17392

Updates the PI Equivalence Table to aid the PI calculations using

BTEC/AW1: Grade P, 0.5 GCSE, 12.5 pts (default value, but there are some instances of 0.25 GCSE and 6.25 pts)

BTEC/CE1: Grade P, 1 GCSE, 25 pts

BTEC/AW2: Grade P, 0.5 GCSE, 23 pts

BTEC/DI1: Grade P, 4 GCSE, 100 pts

And after confirmation from the DfE Xs are removed from the calculations

Patch 17387

BTEC
basedata is routinely issued without discount codes this patch uses the
generic QAN data which can be imported into the census area, to
identify and assign the correct code automatically.

Note this patch will not correct any wrongly aligned codes, but will fill in the blanks.

Reposted from Course Manager Feed which has affected some exam users :

Problem with saving changes in Maintain Course (Updated 17/08 15:30)

Some
schools have reported that when they try to save changes for some of
their courses they get the following error message and are unable to
save.

"Dates entered must fall within dd/mm/yyyy and dd/mm/yyyy"

We
have traced this to a problem with the data, in that dates for the
association of a class with its course fall outside the actual
availability range for that class. This may sometimes be linked to
shortening of the availability of a class, e.g. following the submission
of a copy of "next year’s timetable" at the end of the current year.

Work Around

In the cases we have investigated the following work around has enabled the schools to save their Course changes.

Use
the Census view, or other appropriate date range to find the required
course in Course Manager. Open the course and then change the date range
presented to a one day date range when no classes are taking place.
Click the Refresh button next to the dates, make the required change and
Save immediately. After returning to the browse, the dates will revert
back.

e.g. if the message is that dates should fall within
03/09/2010 and 30/05/2012, than change the dates to 03/09/2012 to
04/09/2012.

Permanent Solution

Patch 17386
is available from SOLUS to fix the data that is causing this problem. We
are also looking into avoiding such a data problem in the future as
part of the next phase of Course Management changes scheduled for the
Spring Release 2013.

BTEC Data (16:00 16th August)

Further
basedata submitted to us by users has enabled us to refine our PI
calculations as they affect BTEC qualifications. New or revised values
that we have been able to identify are:

BTEC/AW1: Grade P, 0.5 GCSE, 12.5 pts (default value, but there are some instances of 0.25 GCSE and 6.25 pts)

BTEC/CE1: Grade P, 1 GCSE, 25 pts

BTEC/AW2: Grade P, 0.5 GCSE, 23 pts

BTEC/DI1: Grade P, 4 GCSE, 100 pts.

We have not found any discrepancies at other levels.

A
revised PI Equivalence table patch will be released early next week to
enable schools that are using these qualifications to improve the
accuracy of their PI calculations.

BTEC Data (16:00 15th August)

We
have noted that with the BTEC basedata that we have been able to access
today that it is routinely issued without discount codes and that it is
laborious and error-prone to assign these manually. A repeatable patch
is in preparation which will use the QAN mirror tables, imported for the
post-16 Learning Aims census, to identify and assign the correct code
automatically.

We expect this to be ready for download early next week, in time for GCSE results download and PI collation and calculation.

(Update 11:45 15 August)

Reposted from Census feed that may affect some exam users :

Problem with saving changes in Maintain Course (Updated 15/08 11:25)

Some
schools have reported that when they try to save changes for some of
their courses they get the following error message and are unable to
save.

"Dates entered must fall within dd/mm/yyyy and dd/mm/yyyy"

We
have traced this to a problem with the data, in that dates for the
association of a class with its course fall outside the actual
availability range for that class. This may sometimes be linked to
shortening of the availability of a class, e.g. following the submission
of a copy of "next year’s timetable" at the end of the current year.

Work Around

In the cases we have investigated the following work around has enabled the schools to save their Course changes.

Use
the Census view, or other appropriate date range to find the required
course in Course Manager. Open the course and then change the date range
presented to a one day date range just after the date range of the
message. Click the Refresh button next to the dates, make the required
change and Save immediately. After returning to the browse, the dates
will revert back.

e.g. if the message is that dates should fall
within 03/09/2010 and 30/05/2012, than change the dates to 31/05/2012 to
01/06/2012.

Permanent Solution

This is likely to take the form of a generic data fix patch.

Just to reconfirm news items posted elsewhere (10:00 15 August)

We released patch 17287 to
update the performance indicator tables, this included the changes made
in the patch 17055 released earlier in the year. Note should be used in
conjunction with reading The Results Day Survival Kit (RDSK) resource 19874 which describes some of the limitations of the data.

It
was also reported that in some cases where a candidate re-sat an
examination and obtained the same grade neither was counted this has
been fixed by applying patch 17320

Both of these patches can be run against Spring and Summer SIMS .net releases.

December 03

I regret to report that there
seems to be quite a number of issues being encountered by colleagues across the
country, particularly with respect to the treatment of OCR Nationals and BTEC
awards. This regrettable situation has arisen largely owing to the late and
inconsistent release of basedata by exam bodies (it should be recognised that
Capita SIMS has no early access to basedata) and errors in the publication of
result files.

We continue to monitor the
situation and will provide further information as soon as we have clarity.

I can also report that,
whilst advice has been that there is no requirement for Summer release 4 in
addition to the patches already applied to your SIMS system, our experience of
supporting the management of post 16 qualifications seems to indicate that it
may be desirable to apply Summer release 4 on top of the patches. I have
requested clarification from Capita SIMS and will write again as soon as I have
it.

I also draw to your attention
the following news items released by Capita SIMS today:

BTEC Data (16:00 16th August)

Further basedata submitted to us by users has
enabled us to refine our PI calculations as they affect BTEC qualifications.
New or revised values that we have been able to identify are:

BTEC/AW1: Grade P, 0.5 GCSE, 12.5 pts (default
value, but there are some instances of 0.25 GCSE and 6.25 pts)

BTEC/CE1: Grade P, 1 GCSE, 25 pts

BTEC/AW2: Grade P, 0.5 GCSE, 23 pts

BTEC/DI1: Grade P, 4 GCSE, 100 pts.

We have not found any discrepancies at other
levels.

A revised PI Equivalence table patch will be
released early next week to enable schools that are using these qualifications
to improve the accuracy of their PI calculations.

We remain in regular contact with
colleagues in other LAs and at Capita SIMS and will continue to disseminate
information as soon as it is made available.

The upshot is that I now write to
advise you to consider your own situation and:

Ensure that you have successfully completed
all of the preparatory work described in the results day survival kit (copy
attached)

Make arrangements to apply such
upgrades as may be required to your database as and when they are released
early next week.

Ensure that you have all non-EDI
results entered to your system and reconciled prior to Wednesday of nest week.

Whilst we are bringing in extra staff
and will make every effort to respond to requests for support on Wednesday 22nd
August, we do anticipate heavier demand than is usual and may need to
prioritise issues with the import of results data over the management and
analysis of non-EDI results.

We remain in regular contact with
colleagues in other LAs and at Capita SIMS and will continue to disseminate
information as soon as it is made available.

I can assure you that both Capita
SIMS and ourselves are sensitive to the pressure that this places on you and
are working hard to ensure that the download and analysis of results goes as
smoothly as possible.